Lottery-type games are popular sources of revenue for governmental agencies and charitable organizations. As used in this disclosure, a “lottery-type game” comprises a game having a predetermined number of payouts or prizes and a determined chance of winning. For example, a lottery-type game may comprise a scratch-off or pull-tab game having a number of pre-printed tickets. Each ticket has some type of printed result indicator which indicates if the particular ticket is a winning ticket and, if the ticket is a winning ticket, indicates the prize or payout. The result indicator is commonly covered with some opaque cover material which may be scratched off or otherwise removed to reveal the indicator below. Thus, the ticket purchaser cannot see if the ticket is a winning ticket until purchasing the ticket and removing the opaque cover material.
Lottery-type games may be implemented through computer-based, electronic systems. Prior related U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/479,975, describes an electronic, multi-level lottery type game in which the play of the game may imitate a regular casino game. However, the game described in this prior application is played with pools of game play records having predetermined outcomes similar to standard paper ticket based lottery games. Thus, the game provides the excitement of a regular casino-type game such as draw poker, for example, but with the security, verifiability, and fixed chances of winning provided by paper ticket based lottery games.
Electronically implemented lottery-type games may be implemented using a central processing system for storing the various pools of game play records and for distributing the game play records to player terminals which are in communication with the central processing system. The player terminals provide a display device for displaying information to the player, an arrangement for accepting a wager, and an arrangement for providing inputs from the player. A player enters the electronically implemented lottery-type game by making a game play request at a player terminal. In response to a game play request entered by the player, the central processing system sends information regarding a particular game play record to the player terminal. The player terminal then displays the information regarding the game play, and, in the case of the system described in prior related application Ser. No. 09/479,975, allows the player to make a response. This response enters the player in another or second level lottery-type game and results in information regarding a second level game play being communicated from the central processing system to the player terminal.
The prior electronic game described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,324,035 to Morris et al. incorporates all information required to define a game play into a video ticket. The incorporated information includes data for the various graphic symbols to be displayed to the player through the player terminal. This arrangement results in relatively large amounts of data having to be transferred to the player terminal for each game play.
The prior electronic game described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,494,197 to Troy et al. utilizes a counter register and winning ticket table at a central processor. In response to a play request from a player terminal, the value in the counter register is incremented and then the winning ticket table is queried to determine if the resulting count corresponds to a winning electronic ticket. The central processor then sends back to the player terminal a packet of information including a winning or losing code as appropriate. The winning code includes the amount won on the play. The Troy Patent also suggests using the amount won to produce a graphic representation of the result at the player terminal. However, using the amount won on a play to communicate a winning ticket to a player terminal constrains the payout structure and graphics available in the game.